Family Promise hosts hands-on financial management training

Published 4:04 am, Friday, May 15, 2015

Families involved in Family Promise of Midland participated in a hands-on workforce and financial management training seminar Thursday, May 7, 2015 at Shared Spaces. James Durbin/Reporter-Telegram

Families involved in Family Promise of Midland participated in a hands-on workforce and financial management training seminar Thursday, May 7, 2015 at Shared Spaces. James Durbin/Reporter-Telegram

Photo: James Durbin

Family Promise hosts hands-on financial management training

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Managing personal finances can be difficult, but for families trying to make ends meet, it is nothing less than crucial.

In an attempt to meet this need, Family Promise of Midland partnered with My Community Federal Credit Union to host a financial management training event for current and former Family Promise families last week.

The hands-on event featured representatives from businesses and organizations around the community including Betenbough Homes, H-E-B, Workforce Solutions and the Midland County Housing Authority.

“The participants really liked the fact that the community was involved and that it wasn’t just us talking about it,” said Nicole Wiseman, case manager at Family Promise. “It was actually people doing the job and they were able to ask questions that were more specific that myself or the credit union wouldn’t be able to answer on our own.”

Wiseman said the event allowed participants to interact with the community representatives in order to create an efficient monthly budget based on their current income. For those who either didn’t currently have an income or had not shared it, they were assigned careers such as a police officer or hair stylist.

At the end, each participant created a budget and worked with a financial adviser to see what they had been able to save. Then they spun a wheel to simulate the unexpected nature of life, Wiseman said.

“You never know when something may happen in your life, you may win a lottery ticket or you may get a parking ticket,” Wiseman said. “Then they had to include that outcome in their budget and reassess if necessary.”

Although this was the inaugural event, Wiseman said its success has already started the nonprofit thinking about growing it for the future.

“We want to do it every other year so that our families have a chance to rotate out,” Wiseman said. “We had a really great time and we hope to have a bigger event in the future and include more agencies in on it.”